Give The Public What They Want, More Blog Posts On Mandates

Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Kevin Sack at NYT:

Seeking to appease disgruntled governors, President Obama announced Monday that he supported amending the 2010 health care law to allow states to opt out of its most burdensome requirements three years earlier than currently permitted.

In remarks to the National Governors Association, Mr. Obama said he backed legislation that would enable states to request federal permission to withdraw from the law’s mandates in 2014 rather than in 2017 as long as they could prove that they could find other ways to cover as many people as the original law would and at the same cost. The earlier date is when many of the act’s central provisions take effect, including requirements that most individuals obtain health insurance and that employers of a certain size offer coverage to workers or pay a penalty.

“I think that’s a reasonable proposal; I support it,” Mr. Obama told the governors, who were gathered in the State Dining Room of the White House.

“It will give you flexibility more quickly while still guaranteeing the American people reform.”

Kate Pickert at Swampland at Time:

As I wrote in November, there’s no guarantee Republicans governors will embrace this 2014 opt-out waiver plan, which would have to pass through Congress to become law:

Aside from the political implications of endorsing a plan championed by a Democratic leader on health reform – even if he is in cahoots with a Republican from a blue state – some on the right might balk at the Wyden-Brown plan on the grounds that it’s still an expensive expansion of government. The Wyden-Brown plan, after all, does not – as far as I can tell – spend any less money than the ACA without a state opt-out. On the contrary, it may cost more.

The Wyden-Brown plan also does not impact the huge Medicaid expansion called for in the ACA, which Republicans vehemently oppose. It doesn’t eliminate taxes on expensive health insurance plans, or fees levied on medical devices or pharmaceuticals.

Another catch: The Wyden-Brown plan only allows states to opt out if they have a good plan for how to undertake comprehensive health care reform on their own. Most states don’t have such a plan. Massachusetts, which enacted reform in 2007, obviously does, which is why Brown was a logical co-sponsor of the opt-out bill. California, Connecticut and Vermont are three other states that are on their way toward developing health care reform inside their borders. But red states – especially southern states – are among those least equipped to design and implement reform that could accomplish what the ACA attempts to do, as they typically have higher percentages of uninsured residents and looser insurance regulation.

Conn Carroll at Heritage:

As long as the HHS Secretary, whether it is Kathleen Sebelius or the next occupant of the office, has the final say on granting Obamacare waivers, then there is no real flexibility for states under Obamacare. All 50 of them would still be at the mercy of the whim of the HHS. The only real way to give states true flexibility on health care reform begins with the full repeal of Obamacare.

UPDATE: Politico confirms that Wyden-Brown has nothing to do with offering Obamacare critical states “flexibility” and everything to do with advancing single payer health care:

[A] White House conference call with liberal allies this morning says the Administration is presenting it to Democrats as an opportunity to offer more expansive health care plans than the one Congress passed.

Health care advisers Nancy-Ann DeParle and Stephanie Cutter stressed on the off-record call that the rule change would allow states to implement single-payer health care plans — as Vermont seeks to — and true government-run plans, like Connecticut’s Sustinet.

The source on the call summarizes the officials’ point — which is not one the Administration has sought to make publically — as casting the new “flexibility” language as an opportunity to try more progressive, not less expansive, approaches on the state level.

“They are trying to split the baby here: on one hand tell supporters this is good for their pet issues, versus a message for the general public that the POTUS is responding to what he is hearing and that he is being sensible,” the source emails.

Ezra Klein:

The question is whether this makes Wyden-Brown more or less likely to pass. I’m guessing less likely. The political theory behind Wyden-Brown was that it gave Republicans a constructive way to attack the Affordable Care Act: The waiver program could be sold as a critique of the law — “it’s such a bad bill that states need to write their own policy” — even as it entrenched the country’s basic commitment to universal health-care insurance. You could’ve imagined it being attached to the budget or one of the spending bills as part of a larger bargain.

But now that Obama has admitted it’s not a threat to the Affordable Care Act, a lot of the appeal for Republicans dissipates. Supporting it could even be seen as helping the White House in its efforts to defend the law against repeal. So the idea looks likelier to become a talking point for the administration — see how reasonable we’re being? — than an outlet for Republicans. But perhaps that doesn’t matter: Wyden-Brown hasn’t attracted any Republican co-sponsors beyond Scott Brown, so maybe it never had a chance of playing its intended part anyway.

Kevin Drum:

I suspect this is not as big a deal as it seems. Basically, Obama is calling the bluff of Republicans who insist that they can build a healthcare system that’s as extensive and affordable as PPACA using some combination of tea party-approved “free market” principles. He’s telling them to put their money (or, rather, money from the feds) where their mouths are, which will probably demonstrate fairly conclusively that they can’t do it. It’s possible that a state like Oregon might enact a more liberal plan that meets PPACA standards, but I doubt that Alabama or Tennessee can do it just with HSAs and high-deductible health plans.

Still, we’ll see. This is a chance for conservatives to show that they have a better healthcare answer in the real world, not just as talking points at a tea party rally. Obama is betting they’ll fail, and he’s also betting they’ll tear each other apart arguing over details while they do it. Life is easy when all you have to do is yell “Repeal Obamacare!” but it gets a lot harder when you have to produce an actual plan.

I Have A Dream, You Have A Dream, Glenn Beck Has A Dream

Amy Gardner at WaPo:

When Fox News and talk radio host Glenn Beck comes to Washington this weekend to headline a rally intended to “restore honor” to America, he will test the strength – and potentially expose the weaknesses – of a conservative grass-roots movement that remains an unpredictable force in the country’s politics.

Beck, who is both admired and assailed for his faith-based patriotism and his brash criticism of President Obama, plans in part to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. as an American hero. He will speak on the anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech, from the spot where King delivered it.

Some “tea party” activists say the event, at which former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is also scheduled to speak, will have a greater impact than last September’s “9/12” march along Pennsylvania Avenue. Though the attendance figures for that anti-tax rally are disputed, it was the first national gathering to demonstrate the size and influence of the tea party movement.

But with just a few days before the Beck rally, basic questions linger, including how big it will be and whether the event, which Beck says is nonpolitical, will help or hurt Republicans in November. Also unanswered is whether Beck can pull off the connection to King without creating offense – or confrontation with another event the same day led by the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Max Fisher at The Atlantic with a round-up

Kate Pickert at Swampland at Time:

Glenn Beck’s 8/28 Restoring Honor Rally has already drawn all sorts of criticism. It’s scheduled to take place on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech – which he delivered on the steps of the memorial in 1963. Given that Beck has said President Obama has “a deep-seated hatred for white people,” some black civil rights feel the rally’s location and scheduling are offensive.

What’s gotten less attention, however, is the group that will financially benefit from the event, the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF). All proceeds raised through Glenn Beck’s promotion of the event go to SOWF – once costs for the rally itself are covered.

The charity, founded in 1980, provides college scholarships for children of special operations personnel killed in action or in training. SOWF is very well-run, with low administrative costs and a four-star rating from the watchdog group Charity Navigator. Some 160 of its scholarship recipients have graduated from college in the past 30 years and there are more than 100 students in college now.

Joan Walsh at Salon:

Beck claims he didn’t know Aug. 28 was the anniversary of King’s most famous speech when he chose the day, and I’m not sure what’s worse — that he’s lying, or that he’s telling the truth. My gut says he’s full of crap: You don’t schedule an event at the Lincoln Memorial, on the same day of one of the most famous events ever held there, and not know of the coincidence. Besides, Beck has been comparing himself to King, and his acolytes to civil rights strugglers, at least since the Obama administration began. He’s too big a megalomaniac not to know the symbolism of his choice.

But let’s say he’s telling the truth: Can someone who purports to be knowledgeable about our political and social history really not know about the 1963 March on Washington? Was Beck even paying attention when Obama accepted the Democratic nomination in Denver just two years ago, and every news organization in the world noted it happened to be on the 45th anniversary of the King speech — that’s right, Aug. 28. It’s hard to believe.

When the “coincidence” was called to his attention, Beck exhibited his trademark megalomania and paranoia. It was “divine providence,” he said — and besides, he snarled, “black people don’t own Martin Luther King!” It seems a little tone-deaf to talk about “owning” someone when King was fighting to undo the legacy of slavery, when African-Americans were literally owned by white people. A final fun fact: Beck insists he only chose the date because that was the only open Saturday before 9/12, and of course he couldn’t ask people to rally on a Sunday, “the Sabbath.” Of course, Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath, but I guess Jews weren’t high on the outreach list for Beck’s big event. But that’s our Beck, who has shown he subscribes to one of the ugliest anti-Semitic canards, that Jews bear the blame for killing Jesus.

Jillian Bandes at Townhall:

We can’t ignore the controversy: Beck is holding the rally at a time and place that is sure to draw scorn from a multitude of people. He’s doing it in the middle of election season, adding additional political weight to his avowed apolitical rally. Beck is a huge talker, and talks a lot about things that no one else does.

But that’s just one side of the coin. There are a multitude of people who believe that Beck is perfectly justified in holding the rally at that time and place, and even consider it an well-executed move. He’s got solid Christian credentials, so even if the rally does leak into politics, he’s built a firm foundation on which to honor our troops and focus on values. And Beck’s talking isn’t just background noise: his audience of over 3 million cable viewers are dedicated to his cause, and eager to spread the word.

Most importantly, lets not loose sight of the forest in the trees. Beck is motivating hundreds of thousands of Americans to get off their couch and get inspired. He’s providing a venue to praise our military and focus on what’s important, and no matter what your view of his political maneuverings, he’s doing a very effective job.

David Swerdlick at The Root

Greg Sargent:

Dems are gleefully noting to reporters that Beck intends to rally the faithful from the Lincoln Memorial — the very spot where King gave his speech 47 years ago. And with turnout estimates running as high as 300,000, Dems say they hope they can wrest some political advantage from what they hope will amount to a massive show of Tea Party force that’s rife with ugly Obama-bashing.

Though there are good reasons to wonder how effective it is, Dems have doubled down on a strategy of relentlessly elevating Tea Party whack-jobbery to turn moderates independents against the GOP. Several Dems cheerfully noted to me this morning that a raucus Tea Party rally staged on the anniversary of one of the turning points in the Civil Rights movement can only help in this regard.

To buttress the case that the rally is bad for the GOP, Dems are circulating a report in this morning’s Post claiming that officials with the Republican party committees are distancing themselves from the rally:

“In general, people coming to Washington, being organized and active is a good thing,” said Doug Heye, a spokesman for Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele.

“But I gotta be honest with you — I don’t know about any Glenn Beck event.”

Given the awful job numbers and the nation’s other myriad problems, it’s hard to imagine that using the Beck rally to tar the GOP will do much to alter the Dems’ electoral fortunes. But the sight of Beck trying to coopt the legacy of King while crazed Tea Partyers bash the first African American president in the ugliest of terms may well go down as an iconic moment in the history of this movement.

David Weigel:

Yeah, because bashing the tea party has done them so much good so far. I remember the Democrats begging, begging for Sarah Palin to endorse Scott Brown in the January 2010 U.S. Senate special in Massachusetts, in the apparent hope that she’d pass her crazy cooties on to him. How’d that turn out for Senator Coakley?

Beck isn’t stupid, and he’s trying to cut down on the easy shots from liberals with a rule: No signs.

Digby:

If the Triumph of the Wingnut rally does attract 300,000 people, keep in mind it’s because they believe this:

Media Matters describes it this way:

In a new promo posted on a “Producers’ Blog” at his website, Beck humbly places the rally in the context of the moon landing, the Montgomery bus boycott, Iwo Jima, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and other landmark historical events. It also not-so-subtly suggests that Beck is following in the tradition of Martin Luther King (which is a farce), Abraham Lincoln, most of the Founding Fathers, Martha Washington, the Wright Brothers, and other notable historical figures.

To give you some sense of the egomania on display here, it starts with the line, “Every great achievement in human history has started with one person. One crazy idea.”

And it’s “brought to you by Goldline.”

Greg Sargent says that Democrats are gleeful about the “I Have A Nightmare” gathering because they think these people will expose themselves to America as the kooks they really are and the people will reject them. But what if they don’t? There’s ample historical precedent for kooks to break through into the mainstream and it can lead to some very unpleasant outcomes. Yes, Beck is nuts. But he’s also the most important figure in the Tea Party movement, which in case anyone hasn’t noticed is in the process of taking over one of the two major parties in the most powerful nation in the world. You can deride these people, as I do every day. But it’s a mistake to not take them seriously or underestimate their appeal in times like these.

No one should ever count on the people naturally seeing through demagogues. Their power lies in their ability to be convincing even when it doesn’t make rational sense and the truly talented ones can change the world. It remains to be see if Beck and his fellow travelers have that kind of juice. But I wouldn’t be so sanguine that they don’t.

Anthony G. Martin at The Examiner:

In a demonstration of the overwhelming support of mainstream America for conservative principles, Glenn Beck’s ‘Restoring Honor’ rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. is drawing ‘hundreds of thousands,’ according to McClatchy Newspapers.

Early reports indicate that so large is the crowd that attendees were having difficulty hearing the speakers. A quick scan of mainstream news outlets that have done actual estimates this morning indicates that attendance at this point is between 300,000 and 500,000 people.

And attendees are still arriving at the rally, which began some 90 minutes ago.

Newsbusters is live-streaming the event.

Michelle Malkin reports that as early as 7:30 AM there were already 100,000 peope gathered at the site.

Reporters on the ground, however, state that the claim of 500,000 attendees is grossly underestimated. A more accurate assessment of the crowd may well turn out to be between 500,000 and 1 million.

Speakers at the event represent a broad cross-section of America–civil rights leaders who were present at the Martin Luther King, Jr. rally in 1963, baseball manager Tony LaRusa, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a host of black preachers, and Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., among others.

Update–Glenn Beck is speaking.  Passionate, eloquent, fervent defense of the Founders’ vision of America–faith, liberty, truth.

Update 2–Beck concludes by saying our hope as a nation is in God–a concept that is entirely consistent with the numerous writings of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin.  They may not have agreed on points of doctrine, but  in one accord they looked to God as the author and sustainer of LIBERTY!

Update 3–Country singer JoDean Messina sings ‘America the Beautiful.’

Update 4–More music from Messina and others.

Update 5–This aerial photo indicates the crowd may well number upwards of 1 million!

Updates on the rally will be reported as they become available.

Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit:

The state-run media is predictably annoyed with this patriotic rally.

The rally is streaming live at the Restoring Honor homepage and is also playing on C-SPAN.

A crowd shot from C-SPAN

Freedom’s Lighthouse has lovely Sarah Palin’s speech at the rally.
What an awesome speech!

Meanwhile, Al Sharpton’s counter freedom rally managed to attract only 3,000 supporters.

Doug Mataconis:

After listening to the Beck rally this morning, though, I think the charges of racism were clearly over the top. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a political rally, though. Regardless of whatever Beck might say, the political undertones were rather obvious, and the degree to which it mixed religion and politics should quite honestly be disturbing to anyone who believes in the value of secularism in politics.

I’m not sure what the impact of this rally will be. I’m sure Beck has something more planned, he always seems to, stay tuned.

UPDATE: Ross Douthat in NYT

David Weigel

Douthat on his blog

Michael Kinsley at The Atlantic

Adam Serwer at Greg Sargent’s place

UPDATE #2: Russell D. Moore

Joe Carter at First Things

Daniel Larison

Reihan Salam at Daily Beast

Adam Serwer at The American Prospect

E.D. Kain

UPDATE #3: Nick Gillespie at Reason

James Poulos at Ricochet

John Tabin at The American Spectator

More Larison

Not Every Explosive Tape Contains Mel Gibson Melting Down

Andrew Breitbart at Big Government:

We are in possession of a video from in which Shirley Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, speaks at the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia. In her meandering speech to what appears to be an all-black audience, this federally appointed executive bureaucrat lays out in stark detail, that her federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions.

In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn’t do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from “one of his own kind”. She refers him to a white lawyer.

Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups’ racial tolerance.

Ed Morrissey:

Actually, if Sherrod had a different ending for this story, it could have been a good tale of redemption. She almost grasps this by initially noting that poverty is the real issue, which should be the moral of the anecdote. Instead of having acted on this realization — and perhaps mindful of the audience — Sherrod then backtracks and says that it’s really an issue of race after all. It certainly was for Sherrod, who admits that “I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do.” Notice that the audience doesn’t exactly rise as one to scold Sherrod for her racism, but instead murmurs approvingly of using race to determine outcomes for government programs, which is of course the point that Andrew wanted to make.

Andrew has a second video, which is more relevant to the out-of-control expansion of the federal government than race. Sherrod in the same speech beseeches her audience to get work in the USDA and the federal government in general, because “when was the last time you heard about layoffs” for government workers? If Sherrod is any example, it’s been too long.

Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin’s:

We interrupt this “Tea Partiers are so incredibly racially biased” broadcast for the following update:

Days after the NAACP clashed with Tea Party members over allegations of racism, a video has surfaced showing an Agriculture Department official regaling an NAACP audience with a story about how she withheld help to a white farmer facing bankruptcy — video that now has forced the official to resign.

The video posted at BigGovernment that started it all is here if you haven’t seen/heard it yet.

Breitbart claims more video is on the way.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled “Tea Partiers are so incredibly racially biased” broadcast.

Tommy Christopher at Mediaite:

As it’s being presented, the clip is utterly indefensible, and the NAACP was quick to denounce Sherrod:

We are appalled by her actions, just as we are with abuses of power against farmers of color and female farmers.

Her actions were shameful. While she went on to explain in the story that she ultimately realized her mistake, as well as the common predicament of working people of all races, she gave no indication she had attempted to right the wrong she had done to this man.

The clip that’s being promoted is obviously cut from a larger context, and while this is often the dishonest refuge of radio shock jocks, in this case, it makes a real difference. Here’s what Sherrod told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

But Tuesday morning, Sherrod said what online viewers weren’t told in reports posted throughout the day Monday was that the tale she told at the banquet happened 24 years ago — before she got the USDA job — when she worked with the Georgia field office for the Federation of Southern Cooperative/Land Assistance Fund.

Sherrod said the short video clip excluded the breadth of the story about how she eventually worked with the man over a two-year period to help ward off foreclosure of his farm, and how she eventually became friends with him and his wife.

“And I went on to work with many more white farmers,” she said. “The story helped me realize that race is not the issue, it’s about the people who have and the people who don’t. When I speak to groups, I try to speak about getting beyond the issue of race.”

Sherrod said the farmer, Roger Spooner of Iron City, Ga., has since died.

It doesn’t seem that Ben Jealous or Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack are aware that Sherrod wasn’t working at USDA when this occurred, or that she did, in fact, help the farmer in question. That changes everything about this story, including the reaction of the crowd. The entire point of the story is that her actions were indefensible.

If what Sherrod says is true, this is not a story about grudgingly admitting that even white folks need help, but rather, a powerful, redemptive cautionary tale against discrimination of any kind. Both the AJC and Mediaite are working to locate a full video or transcript of the event.

This incident is being posed as the right’s answer to the NAACP resolution against “racist elements” in the Tea Party. This story also comes at a time when the New Black Panther Party has been thrust into the spotlight by Fox News (with predictable results), and debate rages over an Arizona immigration law that many say encourages racial profiling.

This is precisely the danger of ideologically-driven “journalism.” It is one thing to have a point of view that informs your analysis of facts, but quite abother when that point of view causes you to alter them.

David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo:

The 82-year-old wife of the white Georgia farmer who was supposedly discriminated against some quarter century ago by the black USDA official forced to resign this week — if the video released by Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government and re-run by Fox is to be believed — is now confirming that in fact Shirley Sherrod saved her and her husband’s farm from bankruptcy and is a “friend for life.”

CNN also spoke with the farmer’s wife and with Sherrod. Rachel Slajda has more.

Kevin Drum:

In a second video, BigGovernment.com says “Ms. Sherrod confirms every Tea Partier’s worst nightmare.” Although this is ostensibly a reference to a joke she made about no one ever getting fired from a government job, that’s not really every tea partier’s worst nightmare, is it? On the other hand, a vindictive black government bureaucrat deciding to screw you over because you’re white? Yeah, I’d say that qualifies.

This is just appallingly ugly, and the White House’s cowardly response is pretty ugly too. This is shaping up to be a long, gruesome summer, boys and girls.

Atrios:

One of the under reported stories of the 90s was just how much Starr’s merry band of lawyers totally fucked over relatively lowly White House staffers in the Great Clinton Cock Hunt. That was largely through subpoenas and lawyer bills, but lacking subpoena power the Right has now turned to a credulous news media and the power of selectively edited video to go after random government officials.

Apparently Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart rule Tom Vilsack’s world. Heckuva job.

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs:

Andrew Breitbart: the heir to Joseph McCarthy, destroying people’s reputations and jobs based on deliberately distorted allegations, while the rest of the right wing blogs cheer. Disgusting. This is what has become of the right wing blogosphere — it’s now a debased tool that serves only to circulate partisan conspiracy theories and hit pieces.

UPDATE at 7/20/10 8:33:55 am:

Note that LGF reader “teh mantis” posted a comment last night at around 6:00 pm that made exactly these points about Breitbart’s deceptive video, in this post.

UPDATE at 7/20/10 9:00:01 am:

It’s disturbing that the USDA immediately caved in to cover their asses, and got Sherrod to resign without even hearing her side of the story; but also expected. That’s what government bureaucrats do. And they didn’t want the USDA to become the next ACORN.

But it’s even more disturbing that the NAACP also immediately caved in and denounced this woman, in a misguided attempt to be “fair.” The NAACP is supposed to defend people like this. They were played by a con man, and an innocent person paid the price.

UPDATE: Rachel Slajda at TPM

The Anchoress at First Things

Caleb Howe at Redstate

Digby

Tom Blumer at The Washington Examiner

David Frum at The Week

Erick Erickson at Redstate

Jonah Goldberg at The Corner

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Jamelle Bouie at The American Prospect

UPDATE #2: Dan Riehl at Human Events

Noah Millman at The American Scene

Scott Johnson at Powerline

Victorino Manus at The Weekly Standard

Andy Barr at Politico

UPDATE #3: More Johnson at Powerline

Jonathan Chait at TNR

Bill Scher and Conor Friedersdorf at Bloggingheads

UPDATE #4: Eric Alterman at The Nation

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Legal Insurrection

Ed Morrissey

UPDATE #5: Ben Dimiero and Eric Hananoki at Media Matters

UPDATE #6: Bridget Johnson at The Hill

UPDATE #7: Kate Pickert at Swampland at Time

And Donald Berwick Goes Down The Slides

Robert Pear in NYT:

President Obama will bypass Congress and appoint Dr. Donald M. Berwick, a health policy expert, to run Medicare and Medicaid, the White House said Tuesday.

Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said the “recess appointment” was needed to carry out the new health care law. The law calls for huge changes in the two programs, which together insure nearly one-third of all Americans.

Mr. Pfeiffer said the president would appoint Dr. Berwick on Wednesday. Mr. Obama decided to act because “many Republicans in Congress have made it clear in recent weeks that they were going to stall the nomination as long as they could, solely to score political points,” Mr. Pfeiffer said.

As a recess appointee, Dr. Berwick will have all the powers of a permanent appointee. But under the Constitution, his appointment will expire at the end of the next session of Congress, in late 2011.

Kate Pickert at Swampland at Time:

Republicans are downright angry that the White House, apparently without much warning, decided to circumvent Congress and critics who were gearing up for a high-profile fight over Berwick’s past statements.

(Among other impolitic utterings, Berwick has said he “is romantic about the NHS,” the UK’s oft-maligned nationalized health system, and believes “excellent health care is by definitional redistributional.”)

Maybe the Administration didn’t have the stomach for another partisan health care reform battle. Maybe it didn’t feel confident in its ability to defend Don Berwick’s contention that rationing should not be the boogeyman of health care policy. Maybe vulnerable Congressional Democrats successfully lobbied for a recess appointment, eager to avoid a contentious confirmation hearing that would bring health care reform to the fore just ahead of this fall’s election. Most likely, it was all of these things.

There was no doubt that Berwick’s confirmation hearing would have created fireworks and there was a chance he would have lost the battle and not garnered the votes needed to be confirmed. His past statements, in or out of context, were a perfect means to caricature the Administration’s health care policies as being all about government control at the expense of quality care. (This, despite that Berwick’s passions include better quality care and a better experience for patients in the hospital.)

In other words, it’s abundantly clear what motivated the White House to install Berwick via a recess appointment. But why do so less than three months after he was officially nominated? It’s not as if this is the only congressional recess on the calendar. CMS has been without a permanent head since 2006 and Berwick’s name has been bouncing around as a leading candidate for more than a year. And how hampered will Berwick be in his job because of the means by which he got it?

That’s what Gail Wilensky wants to know. She ran Medicare and Medicaid under George H.W. Bush and advised Congress on Medicare reimbursements from 1997 to 2001. She is also among a group of CMS administrators who worked in Republican Administrations and who admire Berwick and strongly support his nomination. (It should be noted that the list of medical societies, hospital groups, disease advocacy organizations and others who want Berwick to have the job is seven single-spaced pages.)

“It may have come to this but it didn’t have to happen so soon,” says Wilensky. Installing Berwick during a short Senate recess so soon, is “an in your face, picking a fight response and the guy that’s going to take it on the chin is Don Berwick.”

Ezra Klein:

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: If not for health-care reform, Don Berwick’s nomination to head the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services would not be so controversial. As Thomas Scully, who headed CMS under George W. Bush, says: “He’s universally regarded and a thoughtful guy who is not partisan. I think it’s more about … the health-care bill. You could nominate Gandhi to be head of CMS and that would be controversial right now.”

But conservatives are making a serious mistake by forcing the administration to rely on a recess appointment for Berwick. Ultimately, what weakens Berwick weakens them, as Berwick, whether they know it or not, is one of the best friends they could have in the administration. That’s because insofar as Berwick is a radical, he’s a radical in favor of a patient-centered health-care system — a position that has traditionally been associated with conservatives, not liberals.

This has escaped notice because political activists don’t pay much attention to questions of delivery-system reform. Of the three legs that balance the health-care reform stool — cost, access and quality — cost and access have traditionally been at the forefront of the issue, and are both politically polarized topics. Quality, however, is a demilitarized zone: Conservatives aren’t for high rates of post-operative infections, and neither are liberals.

More than any other individual in the country, it’s been Berwick who has pushed to see quality occupy roughly equal billing with cost and access. His organization, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, is principally known for gathering health-care providers and distributing information on how to do things such as “reduce Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection.” This involves a lot of information on proper hand hygiene. It’s not a terribly ideological crusade.

Which is not to deny that Berwick himself is an ideological guy. He admits he’s an “extremist,” actually. The shame for him is that his manifesto — “What ‘Patient-Centered’ Should Mean: Confessions of an Extremist” — is behind the paywall at Health Affairs. Conservatives who can find themselves a password, however, will find much to like.

John Elwood:

Looks to me like the Senate went out for an intrasession recess on July 1 and will reconvene on July 12. That’s 11 days under the counting method employed by the Justice Department. While it’s on the aggressive end because it’s relatively short, there certainly are a number of precedents for recess appointments during intrasession recesses of that duration–including, if memory serves, President George W. Bush’s recess appointment of Judge Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit. President Clinton made one recess appointment during a 10-day recess, one during an 11-day recess, and 16 appointments during a 12-day recess. I believe that President George H.W. Bush made one recess appointment during a 13-day recess (although the shortest one I can find at this late hour is 17 days). See the government’s brief in opposition in Miller v. United States (especially pp. 26–27 n.5) and its opp. in Franklin v. United States (pp. 29–30) for more.

It is certainly not without controversy, however; Attorney General Daugherty said in dicta in one opinion that an adjournment for “5 or even 10 days” would be too brief to constitute a recess for purposes of using the Recess Appointments Clause.  But the Executive Branch (unsurprisingly) has been walking away from the Daugherty opinion  pretty much ever since.  And that is to say nothing about the considerable academic writing on the subject, much of which has been critical of intrasession recess appointments.  See, e.g., Michael Rappaport, The Original Meaning of the Recess Appointments Clause, 52 UCLA L. Rev. 1487, 1487, 1562 (2005) (stating that “one-month recesses seem too short” but acknowledging that the “prevailing interpretation” of the Recess Appointments Clause “allows the President to make recess appointments . . . during intrasession recesses of ten days and perhaps of even shorter duration”).

Philip Klein at The American Spectator:

This way, Berwick will assume his post without having to explain statements such as this: “Cynics beware, I am romantic about the (British) National Health Service; I love it.”

Nor will he have to answer for his extensive writings and speeches endorsing central health spending caps and government rationing of care to the sick, which I detailed here. At the time, I explained why his draconian views would make him dangerous as the head of CMS:

While Berwick would not have the authority to impose a British health care system on the United States in one fell swoop, as head of CMS, he would be running both Medicare and Medicaid. Given that the two programs alone account for more than one out of every three dollars spent on health care in America (all government programs combined account for 47 percent), private players tend to follow CMS’s lead. Berwick himself has made this point.

“(G)overnment is an extraordinarily important player in the American health care scene, and it has inescapable duties with respect to improvement of care, or we’re not going to get improved care,” he said in a January 2005 interview with Health Affairs. “Government remains a major purchaser.… So as CMS goes and as Medicaid goes, so goes the system.”

He also said that, “(T)he Holy Grail of universal coverage in the United States may remain out of reach unless, through rational collective action overriding some individual self-interest, we can reduce per capita costs.”

More specifically, has priased the British rationing board, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence:

“NICE is extremely effective and a conscientious, valuable, and — importantly — knowledge-building system,” Berwick said in an interview last June in Biotechnology Healthcare. “The fact that it’s a bogeyman in this country is a political fact, not a technical one.”

Justifying the move on the White House blog, communications director Dan Pfeiffer wrote:

Many Republicans in Congress have made it clear in recent weeks that they were going to stall the nomination as long as they could, solely to score political points.

But with the agency facing new responsibilities to protect seniors’ care under the Affordable Care Act, there’s no time to waste with Washington game-playing. That’s why tomorrow the President will use a recess appointment to put Dr. Berwick at the agency’s helm and provide strong leadership for the Medicare program without delay.

But this analysis doesn’t pass the basic smell test. Obama could have announced his CMS appointment at any time after winning the election in November 2008 if it were so urgent, but he waited almost a year and a half — until April of this year — to name Berwick. Conveniently, this was after the health care law had already passed. Had he appointed Berwick during the health care debate, it would have exposed how much Obama’s ultimate vision for U.S. health care borrows from the British model.

Ben Domenech at New Ledger:

Senators have expressed concerns about statements like these, as well as Mr. Berwick’s background. He is a nominee with little management experience poised to head the second largest insurer on the planet, an agency with more funding to disperse than all but the top 15 economies in the world. In fact, the White House’s decision to make this recess appointment is as much a demonstration of their unwillingness to have any debate about Mr. Berwick’s views occur in the public eye as it is of their concern that some in their own party have privately questioned whether he is outside the mainstream.

Such questions are of course appropriate. Thanks to the White House’s decision, they will not be answered. Understand: Mr. Berwick’s position as head of CMS will give him unprecedented power to apply his views on health care policy under President Obama’s new health care regime. Yet thanks to the White House’s game playing, he will not answer one question, not one, before he is ensconced in a position where his radical policy views will ultimately effect the lives and health care of every American.

As we saw in the process of Obamacare’s passage, there is nothing – not precedent, not tradition, not even the most basic expectations of fairness or responsible governance – that will stop President Obama and his allies in their quest to remake American social policy in their image.

Moe Lane:

A quick summary: Donald Berwick hates our healthcare system, wants to replace it with the monstrosity that the British have saddled themselves with, and the White House knows that a confirmation hearing would a: have all of that come out; and b: force a bunch of Democratic Senators to vote in his favor just before the midterm elections.

You know, George W. Bush wasn’t afraid of a little controversy when he thought that the underlying issue was important enough.  How does it feel to have voted for a coward for President, anyway? – I wouldn’t know; I’m a Republican.

UPDATE: Jonathan Cohn at TNR

Poetry Night At The Blogosphere With Dave Weigel And Sarah Palin

Ben Smith at Politico:

Sarah Palin, guerilla Facebook warrior, turns the tables a bit on the author Joe McGinniss — best known for his Nixon campaign account, The Selling of the President, and for the murder investigation Fatal Vision — who, she says, has rented the house next door.

Palin, in a recurring preoccupation, suggests that McGinniss is really there to peep at her young daughters, noting that his property overlooks “Piper’s bedroom, my little garden, and the family’s swimming hole.”

Needless to say, our outdoor adventure ended quickly after Todd went to introduce himself to the stranger who was peering in…

Joe announced to Todd that he’s moved in right next door to us. He’s rented the place for the next five months or so. He moved up all the way from Massachusetts to live right next to us – while he writes a book about me. Knowing of his many other scathing pieces of “journalism” (including the bizarre anti-Palin administration oil development pieces that resulted in my Department of Natural Resources announcing that his work is the most twisted energy-related yellow journalism they’d ever encountered), we’re sure to have a doozey to look forward to with this treasure he’s penning. Wonder what kind of material he’ll gather while overlooking Piper’s bedroom, my little garden, and the family’s swimming hole?

Welcome, Joe! It’ll be a great summer – come borrow a cup of sugar if ever you need some sweetener. And you know what they say about “fences make for good neighbors”? Well, we’ll get started on that tall fence tomorrow, and I’ll try to keep Trig’s squeals down to a quiet giggle so we don’t disturb your peaceful summer. Enjoy!

UPDATE: I haven’t been able to reach McGinniss, but did send an errant email to his son, the novelist Joe McGinniss Jr., who replied, “Sadly, she’s right. We tried our best to intervene, but alas, the heart wants what it wants. We can only pray for him now. He’s convinced that Todd will step aside and when the time is right, he’ll be there, right next door, to pick up the pieces.”

The Mudflats:

While there is no indication that McGinniss planned to publish photos or information about the personal lives of the Palin children, Sarah Palin has responded to the discovery of her famous neighbor in classic Palin style.

When I said “classic Palin style,” if you immediately thought “wild, inappropriate over-reaction” you can give yourself a gold star.  And if you guessed Facebook rant, give yourself another one.  This one was just too big for the Twitter limit of 140 characters.  With twitchy forced nonchalance, she offers to bake him a pie, offers to lend him sugar and says she’ll keep her youngest son Trig quiet so McGinniss can enjoy his summer of peace and quiet while she constructs a giant fence.  In this monologue, which is worthy of every “crazy neighbor” character ever penned, she also speculates (somewhere between the pie and the sugar) that he’ll be spying in Piper’s bedroom window, and watching her do the gardening while wearing skimpy summer clothing. It’s quite something.  Reading it is kind of like watching someone spontaneously combust.

And in a brilliant move, to attempt to show how intrusive he’s going to be, and how much he will invade her privacy, she has actually published a picture of him sitting on the far side of the deck, minding his own business. You know… to show how inappropriate he is for whatever it is he might or might not do at some time in the future.  Maybe.  You know, like taking a creepy spy picture of her that she doesn’t know about and then publishing it online to a hostile audience and asking for comment.  He would sink that low, wouldn’t he.  Some people…

Jack Shafer at Slate:

Where do I go to advance-order a copy of Joe McGinniss’ forthcoming book about Sarah Palin?

Obviously my desire to put money down is premature, as the book isn’t supposed to come out until 2011 and Amazon has yet to post a standing page for it. For all I know, McGinniss hasn’t even written a first chapter. Yet I must find some way to commend the writer for an act of journalistic assholery—renting the house next door to the Palin family in Wasilla, Alaska, from which he is going to research and write his book—that honors a long tradition of snooping.

[…]

In calling McGinniss’ ploy “assholery” I intend no disparagement. I admire his determination to get the story and have no problems, ethically or morally, with him getting as close to his subject as possible—even if his technique seems a little stalkerish. Besides, there’s a long journalistic tradition of wearing sources and subjects down until they surrender … of knocking on the door of a grieving family to ask them, “How do you feel?” … of feigning friendliness to gain access … of crossing police lines in a brisk manner that implies a right to be there … of charming sources’ families, friends, or colleagues in order to get closer to them … of frequenting a subject’s favorite bar, place of worship, and subway stop until he cracks.

Take, for example, the camera ambush, which is at least as intrusive as moving in next door to a subject. But few protested Mike Wallace’s practice of chasing reluctant subjects with a camera crew after they refused to sit down and talk with 60 Minutes. After Wallace came Michael Moore, who became expert at waylaying the unexpecting in unexpected places. The strategy was largely tolerated by the journalistic culture until the boys and girls at The O’Reilly Factor started ambushing “high school principals, lawmakers, journalists and celebrities,” as the New York Times put it. Only then did people start thinking it was creepy.

Still, McGinniss’ stunt will outrage those who believe reporters should get close but not too close, who believe that there is something sacred about an individual’s place of residence, who would prefer reporters to behave more like Boy Scouts and less like gumshoes.

Taking up residence next to Palin doesn’t even approach violating her legal right to privacy. She has no legal right to blind eyes looking at her property from an adjoining property or even from the street. If McGinniss didn’t live next door, he’d be completely within his rights to interview Palin’s neighbors about her. In fact, he’d be remiss if he didn’t grill them about her.

Ken Shepherd at Newsbusters:

Even if one accepts that as a justification, Shafer failed to address what potential blowback that approach might have in the marketplace. Indeed, Shafer saw no potential drawbacks for McGinniss, predicting that the liberal author would most certainly “debut in the [New York] Times best-seller list.”

Of course this appears to be an unprecedented move in the history of modern American politics, but it should be instructive to see if Shafer sings a different tune if in the future a conservative writer would literally move next door to an unsuccessful Democratic vice presidential candidate.

After all, John Edwards certainly ginned up a juicy story or two after his 2004 run.

Foster Kamer at Village Voice:

Oh, Slate: where the writing is endlessly contrarian, in extents ranging from the hysterically absurd to the spot-on to the shamelessly loony. Which is why Slate editor Jack Shafer’s defense of mortal Sarah Palin press enemy, Joe McGinniss – who has employed every tactic of what Shafer refers to as “journalistic assholery” under the sun to get his stories – doesn’t come as much of a surprise. That doesn’t make it any less wonderful.

[…]

Shafer’s not wrong, and of course, there’s a line (there always is). Question, though: Will consumers ever not pick up a piece of news to take in based on the methods a reporter took to get it to them? Historically, no. Then again, consumers never had the information on how those stories came to them like they do now. Think of torture methods: We want the information to protect our government, but at what cost? The public wants the truth, but are they willing to create uglier truths in order to get what they desired in the first place?

In a casual estimation: Yeah, probably.

David Weigel, back on the Palin blog post:

I saw Ben Smith flag this earlier today but did not really appreciate how strange and, frankly, immature Palin’s post was until I read it.

Palin informs her readers that McGinniss is “overlooking my children’s play area” and “overlooking Piper’s bedroom.” Alternately sounding angry and mocking, she refers to “the family’s swimming hole,” which at first reference sounds like she’s accusing McGinniss of checking out the Palins in their bathing suits, until you realize the family’s “swimming hole” is Lake Lucille. And she posts a photo of the space McGinniss is renting, captioning it, “Can I call you Joe?”

Can somebody explain to me how this isn’t a despicable thing for Palin to do? She describes McGinniss as the author of “the bizarre anti-Palin administration oil development pieces that resulted in my Department of Natural Resources announcing that his work is the most twisted energy-related yellow journalism they’d ever encountered.”

Another way of putting it would be that McGinniss is an investigative journalist who wrote his first best-seller at age 26 and was shopping a book about Alaska and the oil industry when Palin was named John McCain’s running mate. And another way of describing those “bizarre” pieces is that no one has ever challenged the facts in them.

Palin, who has an undergraduate degree in journalism, should understand that articles don’t become untrue when the subjects don’t agree with them.

Has McGinniss gone to an extreme to get a story? Well, we don’t have his side yet — not that this has prevented every other media outlet from typing up Palin’s Facebook post like some lost Gospel. But assuming he’s rented the house near the Palins for some period of time, assuming the Palins know he’s there and that he’s writing a book, then what, exactly, is wrong with this?

Politicians don’t have veto power over who gets to write about them, or how they research their stories, as long as they’re within the bounds of the law. It’s incredibly irresponsible for them to sic their fans on journalists they don’t like. And that’s what Palin is doing here — she has already inspired Glenn Beck to accuse McGinniss of “stalking” Palin and issuing a threat to boycott his publisher.

This is really the ultimate example of the way Palin manipulates the press and inverts the relationship between reporters and politicians, turning the former into “stalkers,” and the latter — as long as they’re Republicans or members of her family — into saints whom no one can criticize. No one in the media should reward Palin for this irresponsible and pathetic bullying.

Greg Sargent:

In fairness, McGinniss is doing something a bit unorthodox, and for that reason this particular standoff is perhaps somewhat newsworthy. But more broadly, as long as Palin isn’t an actual candidate for public office, at what point do we stop rewarding every statement from Palin, no matter how vicious or mendacious, with attention? Should there be such a point?

That’s a real question, by the way. I’d love to hear what other reporters and editors have to say about this.

Erick Erickson at Redstate:

Unlike a lot of my friends, I really don’t have a problem with Dave Weigel. He is what he is. Referred to the Washington Post by Ezra Klein as someone competent to cover conservatives (a bit like Lenin making staffing decisions at the Wall Street Journal for someone competent to cover capitalists, or setting up Mearsheimer and Walt as the heads of the NYT’s Israel bureau), Weigel’s primary job has been described to me on several occasions by so many people in the same basic terms as to make me think it is in fact his actual job description: “to report on groups and people on the right who should be viewed as fringe.” At least, that is how one Washington Post employee described the job. Another DC journalist described it as, “His job is to mock tea party foks as racist crazies if they criticize Obama.”

He seems like an affable enough guy. We trade emails and I’m happy to help him on stuff on occasion, but this latest post of his is precisely why I don’t take him seriously — I won’t even get into his twittering that shows total disdain for social conservatives who make up a very large part of that group he is supposedly covering from the inside.

A reporter moves in next door to Sarah Palin — a reporter with a negative history reporting on Palin — and Palin takes to Facebook to complain about the rather stalkerish vibe of this reporter taking up residence right next door to snoop on the family. This is the same reporter who once tried to get into a charity contest where he bid $60,000 to have dinner with Palin. Imagine if you had someone like that move in next door to your family and say they were going to write a book about being your neighbor. We all know that’s exactly what this guy is going to do.

But Weigel, along with a host of other reporters in DC, is going after Palin for being upset about it.

Melissa Clouthier:

Like Erick, I like Dave Weigel–in the same way I liked the trained Siberian Tigers at the Sigfried and Roy show: they look interesting and exotic, but are extraordinarily dangerous–as poor Roy learned the hard way. A journalist is a wild animal with an appetite for conservative meat and should be interacted with that way–always.

I do not expect Dave to be unbiased or fair. I do not expect him to defend a conservative point-of-view, ever, and therefore, I’m not disappointed or offended when he snaps off some pithy, demeaning, diminishing remark about conservatives or conservatism generally.

When he says something sufficiently irritating, I might respond, but mostly, I suppress the urge as it’s useless. Joking at a conservative’s expense and yucking it up is easy peasy. Everyone does it. So trendy.

So no, I don’t take Dave Weigel seriously. I think he’s a gifted writer and has interesting insight. He has an sophisticated mind and I enjoy talking to him. But he’s as ideologically left as the rest, he’s just willing to lower himself to hang with the natives from time to time. And he’s welcome to do so. Conservative people treat him with more kindness because he is willing to at least publicly view conservatives as a species of human. When it comes down to it though, his reporting sounds like reports from the out-back bush.

Dave Weigel with some of his mail

Kate Pickert at Swampland at Time:

Obviously, this is a free country and anyone has a right to rent any house they want. But, as Ben Smith points out, this shouldn’t prevent Palin from saying she finds it annoying that a journalist has moved in next door, which is the general gist of her Facebook post. Additionally, I find it interesting that Weigel—who has done great work covering the day-to-day goings on in the populist right—seems angry that Palin is “bullying” a journalist who’s writing a book about her.

Isn’t this what a journalist writing a critical book about a subject should expect? To be bullied and boycotted by supporters of the subject? This is not new. What is new is the way Palin chose to react to McGinniss’s move. Rather than hunker down and use back channels and legal threats to stymie McGinniss’s work – as public figures have historically often done in cases like this – she’s using Facebook to bring it all out into the open.

Eleanor Barkhorn at The Atlantic:

Sarah Palin made a reference to Robert Frost in a Facebook note this morning—but she missed the American poet and former Atlantic contributor’s point. Reacting to news that a man planning to write a critical book about her is about to become her next-door neighbor, the former Alaska governor echoed the 1915 poem “Mending Wall,” whose refrain is “good fences make good neighbors”:

And you know what they say about “fences make for good neighbors”? Well, we’ll get started on that tall fence tomorrow, and I’ll try to keep Trig’s squeals down to a quiet giggle so we don’t disturb your peaceful summer. Enjoy!As Andrew Sullivan points out, however, Palin’s desire for a tall fence is completely contrary to the spirit of Frost’s poem. “Mending Wall” is a polemic against building walls that separate us from our neighbors—the poem opens with the line,”Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” and goes on to describe the narrator’s attempts to talk his neighbor out of putting one up.

This back-and-forth sounds eerily similar to a plotline from The West Wing— the now-defunct NBC series that has been eerily prescient before. In the show’s fourth season, a Republican campaign strategist misuses the “good fences make good neighbors” line, inspiring some literary-minded White House staffers to set the record straight:

JOSH
Here he quotes Robert Frost. “Good fences make good neighbors.” Did he talk about that?

DONNA
Yeah.

JOSH
What did he say?

DONNA
Basically, that if you stay within your personal space, you’ll end up getting along with everyone.

JOSH
You had to study modern poetry.

DONNA
Yes.

JOSH
Is that what Frost meant?

DONNA
No, he meant that boundaries are what alienate us from each other.

JOSH
Why did he say “Good fences make good neighbors?”

DONNA
He was being ironic.

Shannyn Moore at Huffington Post:

It’s been a few days since the Palins learned Joe McGinniss moved in next door. Love thy neighbor as thyself, then build a fence.

“Fences make good neighbors,” promised her Facebook blog. Not sure at which of the five colleges Palin studied Robert Frost’s Mending Wall , but I think she missed the point. Perhaps it was the, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” part.

Within a few hours Sarah had launched a “Joe The Stalker/Pervert” campaign. Glenn Beck called for a boycott of Random House publishing, and Random House held their ground. The Paliban swarmed with comments of “stalker”, “reload”, “let’s burn it to the ground”, and “get ’em, Todd”. The following morning the Palins super-sized their fence. The “waterin’ hole” must be defended.

Joe the Neighbor should have told Todd he was writing a book about Russia and heard he could research from his porch. He didn’t.

But why the outrage now?

The home Joe McGinniss is renting used to be an Oxford House from 2005 until 2008. The tenants were men recently released from prison who were recovering addicts. What? No fence to protect sexy Sarah in her tank top? Dear God! Who was lurking in that house watching her children play?

The Palins themselves rented the home McGinnis is staying in for six months in 2009, but weren’t interested in purchasing it. They didn’t want to spend the money. Last October they were “done with the house”. During the election, the Secret Service guarded the Palin home from the backyard now occupied by Mr. McGinnis. Here’s a hint, Sarah – if you want to dictate who lives in the house, you should have probably bought it first.

It’s predictable Palin.

UPDATE: Dave Weigel

H.R. 4872

This post will be updated through-out the day.

Joe Gandelman at Moderate Voice:

Former President Bill Clinton was reportedly working the phones to maximize Democratic votes on health care reform yesterday — all aimed at today, D Day for the Democratic party and for President Barack Obama.

Why is it D Day? Because unless there is some unexpected twist, by the end of the day (a phrase used literally here, not as a figure of speech) political junkies and Americans will one way or another be thrust upon a new political policy course with some answers

[…]

Today’s new and old media stories will (correctly) focus on the horse race aspect of the votes.

The House is expected to take up debate around 2 pm. EST and the day is expected to end around 6 or 7 p.m. with the final of several votes.

But it’s D.Day:

A win will change the narrative for the Democrats and Obama.

And so will a loss.

Kate Pickert at Swampland at Time:

Pelosi seems to be on the cusp of success, with various news media tallies indicating she will have enough votes to declare victory by Sunday evening. Even so, Republican opposition was still in full force all day Saturday with House Minority Leader John Boehner saying passage of the Democratic plan for health reform would constitute “Armageddon” that would “ruin our country.” Republican and Democratic leaders are lined up to duke it out again on the Sunday morning talk shows.

To assure House Democrats worried Senate Democrats might not follow through on passing a package of changes to the Senate bill, Pelosi circulated a letter on Saturday from Senate Majority Harry Reid that pledged in writing to do just that. And an earlier proposal to pass the package of changes without ever formally voting on the Senate bill was reportedly discarded on Saturday. Republicans celebrated what could be viewed as a small victory for them – they had heavily criticized the so-called “deem and pass” strategy as circumventing fair legislative practice. But it’s just as possible that Pelosi figured she could pass the Senate bill without making the vote indirect – meaning that throwing out “deem and pass” was actually a sign of Democratic strength.

Pro-life Democrats who supported language in the original House bill that would have restricted access to abortion still constituted the largest bloc of holdout votes Saturday night. There were rumors late Saturday that Obama would issue an executive order reaffirming that health reform legislation will not provide federal funds for abortion, which could provide some political cover and allow some of these Democrats to vote for the Senate bill. Bart Stupak, the pro-life Democratic congressman who authored the original House abortion language, abruptly canceled a morning press conference on Saturday.

But barring something unforeseen, it seems likely that, by Monday, Democrats will have something to celebrate after so many months of uncertainty.

Rick Klein at ABC at The Note:

It’s down to the wire and one of the top Democrats in the House says the Democrats have the votes to pass health care reform – but that some Democrat members might lose their seats as a result.

“We have the votes. We are going to make history today,” Rep. John Larson D-Conn., the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said today on “This Week”. “President Roosevelt passed Social Security; President Roosevelt passed Medicare; and today, Barack Obama will pass health care reform, demonstrating whose side we are on,” Larson told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl.

Ezra Klein, on Saturday:

The president gave a rousing, rambling speech before the House Democratic Caucus this afternoon. It wasn’t so much a closing argument as it was a summation: of the bill, of the politics, of the moment, of the history, and even of the Democratic Party. When I wrote to the White House’s press folks to ask why they hadn’t send out the prepared remarks, they said there were none. The president was just talking, which explains the loose structure and the raw, emotional feel of the text. Here’s the transcript, one of the final important documents in a long and important debate:

I have the great pleasure of having a really nice library at the White House. And I was tooling through some of the writings of some previous Presidents and I came upon this quote by Abraham Lincoln: “I am not bound to win, but I’m bound to be true. I’m not bound to succeed, but I’m bound to live up to what light I have.”

This debate has been a difficult debate. This process has been a difficult process. And this year has been a difficult year for the American people. When I was sworn in, we were in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Eight hundred thousand people per month were losing their jobs. Millions of people were losing their health insurance. And the financial system was on the verge of collapse.

[…]

Now, is this bill perfect? Of course not. Will this solve every single problem in our health care system right away? No. There are all kinds of ideas that many of you have that aren’t included in this legislation. I know that there has been discussion, for example, of how we’re going to deal with regional disparities and I know that there was a meeting with Secretary Sebelius to assure that we can continue to try to make sure that we’ve got a system that gives people the best bang for their buck. (Applause.)

So this is not — there are all kinds of things that many of you would like to see that isn’t in this legislation. There are some things I’d like to see that’s not in this legislation. But is this the single most important step that we have taken on health care since Medicare? Absolutely. Is this the most important piece of domestic legislation in terms of giving a break to hardworking middle class families out there since Medicare? Absolutely. Is this a vast improvement over the status quo? Absolutely.

Now, I still know this is a tough vote, though. I know this is a tough vote. I’ve talked to many of you individually. And I have to say that if you honestly believe in your heart of hearts, in your conscience, that this is not an improvement over the status quo; if despite all the information that’s out there that says that without serious reform efforts like this one people’s premiums are going to double over the next five or 10 years, that folks are going to keep on getting letters from their insurance companies saying that their premium just went up 40 or 50 percent; if you think that somehow it’s okay that we have millions of hardworking Americans who can’t get health care and that it’s all right, it’s acceptable, in the wealthiest nation on Earth that there are children with chronic illnesses that can’t get the care that they need — if you think that the system is working for ordinary Americans rather than the insurance companies, then you should vote no on this bill. If you can honestly say that, then you shouldn’t support it. You’re here to represent your constituencies and if you think your constituencies honestly wouldn’t be helped, you shouldn’t vote for this.

But if you agree that the system is not working for ordinary families, if you’ve heard the same stories that I’ve heard everywhere, all across the country, then help us fix this system. Don’t do it for me. Don’t do it for Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. Do it for all those people out there who are struggling.

Some of you know I get 10 letters a day that I read out of the 40,000 that we receive. Started reading some of the ones that I got this morning. “Dear President Obama, my daughter, a wonderful person, lost her job. She has no health insurance. She had a blood clot in her brain. She’s now disabled, can’t get care.” “Dear President Obama, I don’t yet qualify for Medicare. COBRA is about to run out. I am desperate, don’t know what to do.”

Do it for them. Do it for people who are really scared right now through no fault of their own, who’ve played by the rules, who’ve done all the right things, and have suddenly found out that because of an accident, because of an ailment, they’re about to lose their house; or they can’t provide the help to their kids that they need; or they’re a small business who up until now has always taken pride in providing care for their workers and it turns out that they just can’t afford to do it anymore and they’ve having to make a decision about do I keep providing health insurance for my workers or do I just drop their coverage or do I not hire some people because I simply can’t afford it — it’s all being gobbled up by the insurance companies.

Don’t do it for me. Don’t do it for the Democratic Party. Do it for the American people. They’re the ones who are looking for action right now. (Applause.)

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo:

Things are getting pretty heated in the Capitol with crowds of anti-Reform/Tea Party activists going through the halls shouting slogans and epithets at Democratic members of Congress.

As our Brian Beutler reports, a few moments ago in the Longworth office building, a group swarmed a very calm looking Henry Waxman, as he got on the elevator, with shouts of “Kill the bill!” “You liar! You crook!”

Not long before, Rep. Barney Frank got an uglier version of the treatment. Just after Frank rounded a corner to leave the building, an older protestor yelled “Barney, you faggot.” The surrounding crowd of protestors then erupted in laughter.

At one point, Capitol police officer threatened to throw a group of protestors out of the building but that only seemed to inflame them more; and apparently none were ejected.

Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo:

Civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and fellow Congressional Black Caucus member Andre Carson (D-IN) related a particularly jarring encounter with a large crowd of protesters screaming “kill the bill”… and punctuating their chants with the word “nigger.”

Standing next to Lewis, emerging from a Democratic caucus meeting with President Obama, Carson said people in the crowd yelled, “kill the bill and then the N-word” several times, while he and Lewis were exiting the Cannon House office building.

“People have been just downright mean,” Lewis added.

And that wasn’t an isolated incident. Early this afternoon, standing outside a Democratic whip meeting in the Longworth House office building, I watched Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) make his way out the door, en route to the neighboring Rayburn building. As he rounded the corner toward the exit, wading through a huge crowd of tea partiers and other health care protesters, an elderly white man screamed “Barney, you faggot”–a line that caused dozens of his confederates to erupt in laughter.

After that incident, Capitol police threatened to expel the protesters from the building, but were outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed. Tea party protesters equipped with high-end video cameras were summoned to film the encounter and the officers ultimately relented.

After the caucus meeting, TPMDC’s Evan McMorris-Santoro caught up with Frank, who reflected on the incident.

“I’m disappointed at a unwillingness to be just civil,” Frank said. “[T]he objection to the health care bill has become a proxy for other sentiments.”

“Obviously there are perfectly reasonable people that are against this, but the people out there today on the whole–many of them were hateful and abusive,” Frank added.

James Joyner:

The nature of attracting tens of thousands of people from around the country to protest is such that you are bound to attract a disproportionate share of yahoos, reprobates, and slimeballs.   Whether the Tea Party movement has more of these than your average anti-war rally or World Trade Organization protest, I don’t know.

But Barney Frank is right on all scores here.

Not only is uncivil conduct “disappointing,” it’s ultimately destructive.  (Indeed, while I share common cause on some issues, I’ve been dismissive of the Tea Party movement precisely because of their unfocused anger and rude behavior.) If the Civil Rights protests of the 1960s taught us anything, it was that the quiet dignity of citizens gathered to respectfully demand justice is enormously powerful — especially when it’s juxtaposed against thuggish behavior from the other side.

Movements with significant numbers of incidents like this — whether representative or not — are simply much easier to dismiss.

Instapundit:

DOES CLYBURN OWE TEA PARTY PROTESTERS AN APOLOGY? The bogus racism card has been played so often that I no longer find such charges very credible. I’m sure, however, that, true or not, they’ll be played much more loudly than the indisputably true statements about the antiwar movement.

UPDATE: Reader Rob Kleine writes: “All the focus on the anti-Obamacare protests has me wondering: Are there any pro-Obamacare protesters? Or is the Emperor truly w/o clothes?” I think there was an anti-war protest today in DC, too, but if there were pro-Obamacare protesters I haven’t heard about ‘em.

And several readers note a conundrum for the media — since they ignored the anti-ObamaCare protests, it’ll be awkward for them to suddenly start running stories about charges of racism at those nonexistent protests.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Short on hate: “The rally earlier today on the West Lawn in opposition to the health-care legislation before Congress had all the fingerprints of a somewhat organic celebration of democracy. There was a pretty focused message, but mostly displayed on handwritten signs. . . . As I walked around, if it weren’t for the congressmen and some right-wing organization types speaking, one might think people had gathered for an Independence Day celebration. There were smiles and babies and families and goodwill. Now and again I would run into some lone guy responding to a speaker with ‘then we’ll dismantle the government.’ But that guy also got weird looks — and not just from me. I was struck by how few mass-produced signs there were. Many groups might try to take credit for the rally, but concerned Americans are responsible for it.” Lots of pics at the link.

Plus this: “Those gathered today, among many others across the country and in Washington who oppose this ill-conceived legislation from a condescending, patronizing administration — will not be giving up tomorrow. Because Monday is another day. And so is the first Tuesday in November.”

And, by way of contrast, here are some photos from that antiwar rally today in DC. Note the Soviet-nostalgia T-shirt. But guess which one the press will cast as “extremist?”

John Cole:

The Politico, so for those of you avoiding clicks, you’ve been warned:

In the jittery days following Scott Brown’s Senate victory, Nancy Pelosi was eager to resurrect comprehensive health reform. But first, she had to get past longtime ally Rahm Emanuel, who was counseling President Barack Obama to consider a smaller, piecemeal approach. During a mid-February conference call with top House Democrats, Pelosi made it clear she would accept nothing short of a big-bang health care push – dismissing the White House chief of staff as an “incrementalist.”

Pelosi even coined a term to describe Emanuel’s scaled-down approach: “Kiddie Care,” according to a person privy to the call.

Pelosi’s remark was more than just a diss. It sent a clear signal to House leadership that Pelosi wouldn’t compromise – and it coincided with Obama’s own decision to renew his push for an all-encompassing bill after weeks of confusion and discussion.

So… Do you think you’d be seeing puff pieces in Dick Cheney’s personal diary, the Politico, if the bill had failed? And puff pieces about Nancy Pelosi, of all people?

This is what I have never understood about those who voted yes the first time around but were then spooked on purely political matters (and not the actual content of the bill). The Republicans simply are going to oppose you no matter what (as Blanche Lincoln is learning, years of tongue-kisses to the GOP doesn’t amount to a bucket of warm spit), and if the bill passes, the entire narrative changes. For everyone. And the way the teabaggers are playing along, throwing out racial epithets and yelling faggot while screaming about taking matters into their own hands, they are providing the perfect frame for this comeback story.

As an aside, I think when people feel comfortable to talk on record, meaning years from now, I think it is going to turn out that the toughness of Nancy Pelosi and the patience of Obama are what saved his Presidency. She might turn out to be the best partner he has in all of DC, and will probably, depending on what happens, go down as one of the greatest speakers in recent memory. Every time she needs the votes, she gets them.

Paul Mirengoff at Powerline:

I don’t know whether Nancy Pelosi has her 216 votes yet, but there’s reason to think she didn’t as of around noon today. That’s when Reps. Driehaus (D., Ohio) and Dahlkemper (D., Penn.), both of the Stupak coalition, met with the Speaker in her office. Apparently, she still needed to win a few more votes from members of that coalition.

Another member of the Stupak group, Dan Lipinski (D-Ill), told The HIll that Stupak still commands more than seven votes against the bill. “There’s still time and they still need votes,” Lipinski said.

The thinking here is that Pelosi will find a way to get what she needs. But the clock is ticking and she may not be there yet.

UPDATE: Jeffrey Anderson at NRO’s Critical Condition blog says Pelosi is still short. He counts 208 leaning in favor, 214 leaning against, and nine undecided. At this point, though, “leaning against” may mean “waiting for an inducement” in some cases.

JOHN adds: This is consistent with what James Hohmann of Politico told us on our radio show this morning, i.e., that as of around 1:00 this afternoon, Pelosi had 206-208 “yes” votes.

UPDATE: Jared Allen at The Hill:

Democrats have reached a deal on an executive order on abortion that could hand them a victory on healthcare.

“Eight or nine” Democrats, including Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), will announce the deal at a 4 p.m. press conference, according to an anti-abortion Democrat.

“We’ve changed [our votes],” said Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio).

Jonathan Chait at TNR:

Unless something goes awry, it’s game, set, match.

Update: Stupak says “We have an agreement.”

UPDATE #2: Steve Benen:

As you may have heard, the House passed the rule on health care reform.

House Democrats have approved the rule for debate on the healthcare bill, moving them one step closer toward a final vote on the legislation.

The rule was passed 224-206, with 28 Democrats voting against the measure. All Republicans cast “no” votes. A procedural vote on the rules passed by a similar count, 228-202.

The tally is a key test vote for Democrats, who hours earlier were able to bring aboard Rep. Bart Stupak’s (D-Mich.) anti-abortion rights voting bloc by striking a compromise with the White House.

Under House procedure, lawmakers must approve the rules for debate before taking up actual legislation.

The vote allows formal debate to begin on the healthcare bill.

Here’s the roll call; note that 28 Dems voted with Republicans in opposition. It’s the first of the three key votes.

Megan McArdle:

One cannot help but admire Nancy Pelosi’s skill as a legislator.  But it’s also pretty worrying.  Are we now in a world where there is absolutely no recourse to the tyranny of the majority?  Republicans and other opponents of the bill did their job on this; they persuaded the country that they didn’t want this bill.  And that mattered basically not at all.  If you don’t find that terrifying, let me suggest that you are a Democrat who has not yet contemplated what Republicans might do under similar circumstances.  Farewell, social security!  Au revoir, Medicare!  The reason entitlements are hard to repeal is that the Republicans care about getting re-elected.  If they didn’t–if they were willing to undertake this sort of suicide mission–then the legislative lock-in you’re counting on wouldn’t exist.

Oh, wait–suddenly it doesn’t seem quite fair that Republicans could just ignore the will of their constituents that way, does it?  Yet I guarantee you that there are a lot of GOP members out there tonight who think that they should get at least one free “Screw You” vote to balance out what the Democrats just did.

If the GOP takes the legislative innovations of the Democrats and decides to use them, please don’t complain that it’s not fair.  Someone could get seriously hurt, laughing that hard.

Five Out Of Five Bloggers Recommend Disclosure

Emptywheel at Firedoglake:

MIT health economist Jonathan Gruber has been the go-to source that all the health care bill apologists point to to defend otherwise dubious arguments.  But he has consistently failed to disclose that he has had a sole-source contract with the Department of Health and Human Services since June 19, 2009 to consult on the “President’s health reform proposal.”

He is one source for the claim that the excise tax will result in raises for workers (though his underlying study is in-apt to the excise tax question). He is the basis for the argument that the Senate bill reduces families’ risk–even if it remains totally unaffordable. Even Politico stenographer Mike Allen points to Gruber’s research.

But none of the references to Gruber I’ve seen have revealed that Gruber has a $297,600 contract with HHS to produce,

a technical memorandum on the estimated changes in health insurance coverage and associated costs and impacts to the government under alternative specifications of health system reform. The requirement includes developing estimates of various health reform proposals on health insurance coverage and cost. The alternative specifications to be considered will be derived from the President’s health reform proposal. [my emphasis]

(h/t Mote Dai)

The President’s health reform proposal? But I thought this was the Senate’s health reform proposal?!?!? (wink!)

Now, HHS says they had to put Dr. Gruber in charge of evaluating health care reform proposals because he’s got,

a proven micro-simulation model with the flexibility to ascertain the distribution of changes in health care spending and public and private sector health care costs due to a large variety of changes in health insurance benefit design, public program eligibility criteria, and tax policy.

Even assuming that Gruber is the only one in the world who can run these simulations, don’t you think it’s rather, um, dubious that the guy evaluating the heath care reform–for $300,000–is also the package’s single biggest champion?

And no one has been transparent about this contract?

Update: Actually, Gruber failed to disclose his $392,600 contracts with HSS. The reference to ongoing work in the bigger, second one refers to a $95,000 contract he had from March 25, 2009 to July 25, 2009.

Megan McArdle:

I certainly would not have written about him the same way, even though I am sure that what Gruber is saying comports with what he believes.  My guess is that like me, most journalists would have treated him as an employee of the administration, with all the constraints that implies, rather than passing along his pronouncements as the thoughts of an independent academic.  Christina Romer is a very, very fine economist.  But her statements about administration policy are treated differently from statements by, say, her colleague Brad De Long.

Given how influential Professor Gruber’s work has been during the health care debate, that’s rather a large problem.

Gruber’s explanation that “he disclosed this to reporters whenever they asked” is not very compelling.  I don’t see how anyone even tangentially connected to policy work could fail to realize that this was a material conflict of interest that should have been disclosed, and reporters cannot take up all their interview time going through all the sources who might have been paying or otherwise influencing their interviewee.

The standard is even higher for people who are taking public funds, and not only Professor Gruber, but the administration had a responsibility to disclose the relationship.  Yet a post on the OMB blog signed by Peter Orszag cited Brownstein’s Gruber quotes without mentioning the relationship.

To be clear, I’m sure that Jonathan Gruber is in favor of passing this health care bill, and thinks it will do a lot of genuine good.  I don’t think that funding automatically discredits the message; his work should stand on its own merits.  But journalists and academics are granted a presumption of independence that is not given to most other professions, and that gives them a special duty to make it clear whenever there is a relationship that people might reasonably think has affected their views.  Lefties were rightly furious when journalists turned out to have been taking money from the Bush administration, and I’m glad to see that at least some of them are holding Obama to the same standard.

More McArdle, with an e-mail from Ron Brownstein

Ezra Klein:

I’ve spoken occasionally with Gruber for years now, and never noticed a shade of difference in his positions. Even so, his government contract should have been disclosed to me, and in the future, when I quote Gruber, it will be disclosed to you. In the meantime, if the administration is indeed listening to Gruber, I hope they heed him on this.

Bruce Bartlett:

It was foolish of Jon not to disclose this relationship because it calls his integrity into question. Henceforth, he will have to be identified in the media as an Obama administration adviser rather than being considered an independent analyst, albeit one who served in the Clinton administration’s Treasury Department.

Ben Smith at Politico:

I asked Gruber about the reports, and he responded by stressing that the contract was not for public relations, but for analysis, and that he’s long advocated for a consistent set of policies:

I do indeed have a contract with HHS. Throughout this year I have provided technical assistance to the administration and to Congress with my micro-simulation model, as well as based on my experience as a member of the Massachusetts health connector board. But NONE of the work I have done in public, or any public declarations I ahve made, has been in any way funded by the Administration. That funding was strictly for internal work that I did for the administration and, via the administration, for congress. All externally visible work and comments, such as my editorials or public reports, have been done on my own time.

Moreover, at no time have I publicly advocated a position that I did not firmly believe – indeed, I have been completely consistent with my academic track record.

UPDATE: Kate Pickert at Swampland at Time

Karen Tumulty at Swampland at Time

Paul Krugman

Jane Hamsher responds to Krugman

UPDATE: Jane Hamsher at Huffington Post

Bruce Bartlett

Harold Pollack at TNR

UPDATE: Paul Krugman

Glenn Greenwald

John Cole

Brad DeLong

David Dayen at Firedoglake

bmaz at Emptywheel

It’s Dead, Jim, Part II

Kate Pickert at Swampland at Time:

The scuttle around Capitol Hill today is that public option devotees in the Senate are considering giving up the fight – in exchange for some rather hefty parting gifts. But before we get too far, let’s clear one thing up – again. The public option “alternative” – which would replace the opt-out public plan currently in the Senate bill – being negotiated by a group of 10 Democrats working behind closed doors is not a government-run health insurance plan. The group is floating an idea that would basically allow the federal Office of Personnel and Management to negotiate with private non-profit insurance plans on behalf of small groups and individuals. This would not constitute a true public option and would not accomplish what a public option was designed to do: leverage a large-scale national public insurance plan to drive down health care costs and force private insurers to keep rates low.

Jonathan Cohn at TNR:

Now we have a new compromise on the table–one that would effectively give up on this incarnation of the public plan. Under this compromise, the Office of Personnel Management would oversee a network of national, non-profit plans that would market themselves in every state (except those that opted out). OPM is the same division that runs the network of plans available to federal employees. The idea is to make sure everybody can buy the same kind of coverage members of Congress get, although that’s a bit of an exaggeration. My colleague Suzy Khimm explained why on Monday.

More promising is a proposal that would allow older workers (perhaps ages 55 to 64) buying coverage through the exchanges* to purchase Medicare rather than a private policy. These workers, in other words, could pay for what is literally a government-run plan. It just happens to be plan that’s already in existence, rather than one a reform would create anew.

Since exchanges wouldn’t begin operating until 2014, at least under the Senate bill, the option wouldn’t be available until then. And that’s a long time to wait, particularly given the target population. People between the ages of 55 and 64 have a notoriously hard time buying coverage on their own, since their age and higher incidence of disease makes them the sorts of high medical risks insurers don’t want to cover.

The senators negotiating this deal understand this, according to senior staffers. And while no decisions have been made–indeed, this whole deal is in flux, with numerous moving pieces–the staffers say the senators are thinking about one more twist: Making Medicare available even before the exchanges start up, perhaps as early as 2011.

Making Medicare available before the exchanges are ready gets complicated, because the premiums will inevitably be more than many workers can afford. (The idea is to make the program pay for itself, rather than dipping into the pool of funds for retirees, so the money coming in has to cover the medical bills this relatively unhealthy group would generate.) As such, Senators are examining whether it’s possible to offer discounted premiums for the first few years, and then charging higher premiums later on to make up for it. (At that point, subsidies from the exchanges would be available to offset the costs).

The idea doesn’t come out of the blue; a Clinton-era proposal called for a similar shifting of premiums to make Medicare buy-in workable. But it might still mean finding some extra funds. (It’s hard to know, again, without more details.)

Mark Kleiman:

The best use of the “public option” is as a bargaining chip.

Looks as if the Senate liberals are driving a pretty hard bargain:

–  Medicare buy-in for those between 55 and 64.

– Medicaid coverage up to 150% of the poverty line in all states.

– A national private plan or plans to be negotiated by the federal Office of Personnel Management, which negotiates the federal employee plans.

If this works out as well as it seems it might, a bunch of people are going to owe Harry Reid an apology.

Ezra Klein:

The negotiations are fluid right now, and there’s nothing close to agreement. But there is interest, and everyone remains at the table. The broader point is that the public option compromise is increasingly becoming a health-care reform compromise, and the focus is returning, usefully, to the goals of the bill. That’s good for both moderates and liberals, as everyone who votes for this bill has a stake in seeing it work, and the intense attention to the increasingly weakened public option had begun to distract from the need to improve other elements of the legislation.

David Dayen at Firedoglake:

Obviously, all of these questions will be answered in due course, and probably later today, as Harry Reid has set a deadline for these negotiations to allow him to still finish a bill by Christmas. But let me say one thing which might seem paradoxical: the slow, agonizing death of the public option – and what may be replacing it – proves why you need a public option.

Let me explain. At the end of the day, the only way to eliminate the government-run plan was to expand the already operating government-run plans – Medicare and Medicaid – to around 40-45% of the uninsured who would be eligible for the exchange (a higher rate than the public option on offer, mind you). These plans came into existence in 1965, have become cherished by both parties – at least rhetorically, as we’ve seen in this debate – and therefore were candidates to expand, to compensate for the lack of a public plan. In other words, the architecture of Medicare and Medicaid was built in the 1960s, and it continues to expand to this day.

That was the promise of the public option – creating the architecture of a plan that would not be walled off to the poor or the elderly, but potentially open to everyone. Yes, it was constricted at first, only sold on the exchanges for individuals and certain small businesses. But it had the potential to gain trust, and become normalized in the way that Medicare and Medicaid are, and from there grow. Nobody thought the public option on offer, with the state opt-out, was any kind of perfect object – far from it. It was the act of setting up such an option, an alternative to private insurance that could over time, with enough market share, force that private insurance to compete – that was what was truly desired. Medicare and Medicaid prove the point that a public plan will improve and expand over time, if for no other reason than the fact that private insurance is completely unsustainable and has to act criminally to survive.

Without a public option, we are far less prepared for what will happen when the private health insurance system ultimately collapses. All the liberal pragmatists arguing against it saw the public option as a static object with static rules. This possible trade-off for Medicare and Medicaid expansion shows that to be short-sighted.

Incidentally, there are several dozen House members who aren’t going to be terribly pleased with seeing their months of legislative work ignored and thrown in the garbage, especially if they don’t even get a conference committee out of it. So while we could hear about a “deal” today, remember that it’s only a deal if everyone agrees to it.

Steve Benen

UPDATE: Brian Beutler at TPM

Michael Tanner at Cato

Digby

Yuval Levin at The Corner